A Pittsburgh man is headed to prison for at least 11 years in a plea deal over the gruesome killing of his 5-day-old son.<\/p>\n
By the account of the presiding judge, Shawn Martin got off easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cArguably, you should be facing the death penalty for this conduct,\u201d Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Eliot Howsie told Martin during his sentencing. \u201cI\u2019m not a supporter of the death penalty \u2026 but I can see how someone could argue for it in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the worst cases I\u2019ve dealt with, as an attorney or as a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin, 32, of the city\u2019s Northview Heights neighborhood, pleaded no contest Tuesday to third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child in the 2023 death of Jah\u2019Shawn Martin.<\/p>\n
The boy\u2019s head was struck so hard that pieces of his skull separated from each other and shattered.<\/p>\n
It was the second time Martin has negotiated with prosecutors over his fate. He pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in June but withdrew the plea before sentencing.<\/p>\n
Martin faced a maximum jail sentence of 40 years for the third-degree murder charge. Under the plea deal, he could be in prison for up to 28 years.<\/p>\n
The Allegheny County District Attorney\u2019s Office did not respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Martin has been in custody since his arrest on Jan. 12, 2024.<\/p>\n
Martin, dressed Tuesday in a powder-blue, button-down shirt and striped tie, bowed his head through much of the hourlong hearing. He said little in court besides answering questions \u2014 mostly \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d \u2014 in a hushed voice.<\/p>\n
When Martin pleaded guilty last year, the potential deal called for a 12-year minimum sentence, according to his lawyer at the time, Patrick Nightingale.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, as jurors entered their third hour of waiting for Martin\u2019s scheduled trial to begin, the defendant brought sentencing to a halt when he told Howsie that he was not satisfied with his new court-appointed attorney \u2014 Thomas N. Farrell, who succeeded Nightingale.<\/p>\n
Farrell and Martin spoke with each other, microphones at the defense table switched off, before resuming the plea hearing.<\/p>\n
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office ruled blunt-force trauma to the head as the cause of Jah\u2019Shawn\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
It took Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Sarah Weikart more than five minutes Tuesday to read into the court record all of the baby\u2019s injuries, which included multiple fractures and hemorrhages.<\/p>\n
The forensic pathologist who examined Jah\u2019Shawn\u2019s body said \u201cshe has never seen an infant with injuries this severe,\u201d Weikart said.<\/p>\n
An adult would have suffered similar injuries from falling 20 to 30 stories, or being struck by a tractor trailer, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a horrible case,\u201d Farrell said after the hearing. \u201cNobody wins in this. Everybody\u2019s lost. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2019<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Jah\u2019Shawn was born on Dec. 11, 2023. He and his mother, De\u2019Azaia Spearman, were released from West Penn Hospital two days later, but she had to return because of complications. She left Jah\u2019Shawn at home in the care of his father, who also had their 2-year-old at home.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 15, Weikert said, Martin took the newborn for his first pediatrician\u2019s appointment and then returned home. Doctor\u2019s notes from that day showed the baby was \u201cin good health,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
That evening, Martin and Spearman were on the phone together when they both fell asleep with the phone line open, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Spearman told police she woke up around 10:45 to hear the baby screaming in an \u201cabnormal\u201d way, Weikert said Tuesday. The new mother yelled for Martin to wake up but could not get him to respond.<\/p>\n
She hung up and tried to call him 20 times unsuccessfully. Spearman then called a friend and asked him to go to their Mt. Pleasant Road home to check on the baby.<\/p>\n
The friend, Hezekiah Odom, arrived around 11:15 p.m. and entered the house. He told Spearman the baby was in a baby seat sleeping, and that Martin was sleeping on the couch nearby.<\/p>\n
Odom took a picture and sent it to Spearman, who recognized Jah\u2019Shawn was not positioned appropriately. She asked Odom to wake Martin.<\/p>\n
Odom did and then left the house. Martin called Spearman, the criminal complaint said, and reported that Jah\u2019Shawn was not breathing.<\/p>\n
They called 911. Martin said \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d to the dispatcher, according to Farrell, Martin\u2019s attorney. Jah\u2019Shawn was rushed to UPMC Children\u2019s Hospital of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
He died there a few hours later.<\/p>\n
\u2018My life is in shambles\u2019<\/p>\n
Imaging of Jah\u2019Shawn\u2019s body showed that he sustained at least one \u2014 but possibly multiple \u2014 blows to the head. He had bleeding as well as multiple skull fractures, and sustained trauma to his right upper arm, as well.<\/p>\n
Doctors called it \u201cforcibly inflicted trauma\u201d that could not have been caused accidentally. Prosecutors Tuesday said the baby likely suffered \u201csubstantial pain\u201d before dying.<\/p>\n
In interviews with Pittsburgh detectives, Martin said he did not know what happened to his son because he was asleep.<\/p>\n
Martin said that after Odom left, he picked up Jah\u2019Shawn and started to kiss him.<\/p>\n
It was then, Martin said, that he noticed the baby was limp and unresponsive.<\/p>\n
In his interview with detectives, Martin said he had no idea what happened to Jah\u2019Shawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Martin said he was just as confused as detectives,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
When the detectives said Jah\u2019Shawn died from powerful blows to the head, \u201cMr. Martin said he doesn\u2019t know how that happened because he was asleep,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
None of Martin\u2019s family attended Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Howsie said. Jah\u2019Shawn\u2019s mother provided the only victim statement in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what to say \u2014 I didn\u2019t expect this to happen,\u201d said Spearman, who told the judge she knew Martin for six years before the incident. \u201cI told him: \u2018Don\u2019t drink. Don\u2019t smoke. Don\u2019t do nothing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Spearman said Jah\u2019Shawn\u2019s death has been hard on both her and the baby\u2019s siblings.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life is in shambles,\u201d Spearman said as she wept. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me and I\u2019m disappointed. I\u2019m just so disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pittsburgh man is headed to prison for at least 11 years in a plea deal over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-253948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}